Animation Choices in PowerPoint

Do you like MS PowerPoint’s animations for your shapes, pictures and text?

I don’t know about you, but I like the control it gives me for revealing content as I’m ready to cover it. I know that my audience isn’t busy reading every word on the slide instead of focusing on the current discussion.

So… needless to say, I use them all the time as I’m sure many of you do too.

My thought today is about how each animation is started.

If you think that each and every one takes a click to make it happen, then we need to talk.

You actually have a couple of other good choices when it comes to starting an object’s animation on a PowerPoint slide.

By default animations are start with the “On Click” setting.

But, there are also the “With Previous” and “After Previous” settings to choose from.

“With Previous” will set the animation of the selected object to start at the same time as whatever animation is started with the click directly before it.

Here’s a great side note: I love to use this one for the very first thing to have an animated entrance on the slide. Basically, this setting will start the object animation as soon as the transition to the slide is complete. I like it because it will allow me the animated entrance without the extra pause that the required click can cause.

“After Previous” will do exactly as it says… it will start the object’s animation when the one just prior to it is completed.

You’ve just got to give these a try! I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of work in PowerPoint lately and these have truly helped to make my presentations smooth as silk!